They brought their grief and love, and they left with a handful of stones, a bag of dirt or a scrap of metal.

Hundreds of family members brought away small mementos of Ground Zero yesterday, the first time many of them had been able to visit and touch the hallowed earth of the World Trade Center site.

“We wanted to bring a piece of his life with us,” said Ralph Maerz, whose son Noell Maerz died in the south tower, where he worked for Eurobrokers.

Maerz, who lives in Pennsylvania, filled a small film canister with dirt from the bottom of the pit, and he also carried away a handful of small stones and a bent piece of steel.

He said he’ll put the relics in a memorial garden the family has planted in their back yard to honor Noell.

Robin Peterson filled a container with dirt in memory of her husband, William, who died in the north tower. She also took some small stones for the rock garden he built at their Queens home. On the ground inside the pit she recalled seeing shiny fragments of broken mirrors and bits of tile.

“You wonder: Was that a mirror he used or a tile from a bathroom he had been in?” Peterson said.

“You try to find meaning in all these things as you go along. What else can you do? This dust was part of him. We needed to come down into the dirt and say a prayer for him.”

Lorraine Gill, the mother of fallen firefighter Paul Gill, came out holding a small block of metal with a piece of cloth fused to it.

“I walked in and I looked down, and it was right at my feet. I thought that I was meant to bring it out,” Gill said.

Her daughter Michelle, Paul’s sister, took a smooth, round stone.

“It’s a piece to remember him by,” she said.

As the names of the victims were read aloud during yesterday’s ceremony, hundreds of family members gathered at the bottom of the pit. Many could be seen stooping to fill water bottles or other containers with dirt and rocks.

Mindy Gomez, 20, came in tribute to her close friend Jenine Gonzalez, who worked for Aon on the 102nd floor of the south tower. She left with a plastic bottle filled with dirt.

“I wanted something that was from the World Trade Center because they’re clearing everything away and it will be gone,” Gomez said.